How to apply ISCED codes?
Following the recommendations of UNESCO, the Egracons conversion tool will link degrees (both BA and MA) to ISCED codes and in this way create comparable student reference groups. The ISCED fields of Education and training are used by UNESCO /Eurostat/ OECD to classify degrees into disciplines. A new classification was agreed upon in 2013 by UNESCO and now replaces the old 1997 version. The ISCED-2013 F classification comprises about 80 fields of education (detailed level = four digits). The detailed fields (the third hierarchical level of the classification) are intended mainly for use at the tertiary level of education. If you want to use a code at a higher level, one or two digits ‘8’ are added. In this way 4 digits can be used at all times. Codes with ‘8’ in it are referred to as Interdisciplinary programmes. It is also possible to use a digit ‘9’ at the detailed level to indicate a discipline not covered by the other detailed codes with 4 digits (‘not elsewhere classified’) and even the digit ‘0’ if no further info is available (‘not further defined’). For more info see the ISCED manual.
At the highest one-digit level the following 11 broad groups of fields of education are distinguished: 00 Generic Programmes and qualifications, 01. Education, 02. Humanities and arts, 03. Social sciences, journalism and information, 04. Business administration and law, 05. Natural Sciences, mathematics and statistics, 06. Information and Communication Technologies, 07. Engineeering, manufacturing and construction, 08. Agriculture, forestry and veterinary, 09. Health and welfare, and 10.Services. Read more here.
The Egracons project aggregates (combines) the degree programmes (of the same cycle) that belong to the same ISCED study field code to make up one single reference group (discipline) as identified by a 4-digit code. The grading tables are therefore submitted per degree, but the degrees are combined automatically to ISCED discipline codes inside the tool. Each separate degree (diploma qualification) therefore has to be assigned a 4-digit code, but several degrees may share the same code. This makes it possible to search both by degree title and ISCED code. The choice of the codes is critical and in order to make the conversion simpler, it should be as uniformly applied as possible. Egracons suggests that all HEIs within the same country (or educational system of a region) use a uniform list for the whole country. This makes it possible to have a one-to-one correspondence between reference groups of different countries. Comparing grading tables based on individual degree programmes would not offer this correspondence, as they cannot be readily compared, may be statistically unstable and be too dependent on the grading behaviour of individual professors.
The requirement of providing 4-digit codes was incorporated in the grading table data templates available now at the EGRACONS website. All available codes can be accessed there as well. The Grading Table Templates can be accessed at http://egracons.eu/document/grading-table-instructions-and-template. Make sure you use the latest version. The templates offer the possibility of supplying the English translation of degree titles at the host university as well, as these are easier to understand by the people converting the grades at the home university.
Universities willing to submit their grading tables are now asked to use the templates available and send them to the project team at: Valere.Meus@UGent.be. The tool is now fully operational.
Please use the list of ISCED Codes indicated by Egracons that you can find here. A full list is also included in the Excel templates. Unesco has also published a handy document with a numerical and alphabetical index for a large number of disciplines
Attachments:
 | isced-f-detailed-field-descriptions-en.pdf (575.16 KB) | Download |
